Final-year MBBS students with ATKT wait for summer exam schedule to start working

A day after state minister for health education Amit Deshmukh clarified that exams for undergraduate medical and dental students will be conducted in the physical mode between June 10 and 30, a bunch of final-year MBBS students, who cleared their degree exams with one or two subjects in Allowed to Keep Term (ATKT) in April, are still waiting for their degree

A day after state minister for health education Amit Deshmukh clarified that exams for undergraduate medical and dental students will be conducted in the physical mode between June 10 and 30, a bunch of final-year MBBS students, who cleared their degree exams with one or two subjects in Allowed to Keep Term (ATKT) in April, are still waiting for their degree.

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There are 240 such final-year students who now have to wait for the summer exams session to be conducted, in order to appear for the pending exams and gain their MBBS certificates.

“Our results were announced in April and only 240 of us have failed in one or two subjects which, as per rule, is conducted in the summer session. However, this year, the pending winter session exams from December-January are being scheduled to take place in June, so we are not sure when our exams will be conducted,” said one of the students, requesting anonymity. He added that without clearing the ATKTs, these students do not get their degrees from respective institutes.

While second- and third-year medical, dental and para-medical exams were postponed due to high number of Covid-19 cases, final-year MBBS exams were conducted in March and the results for the same were announced in the last week of April.

“The idea behind conducting final-year MBBS exams in March despite rising Covid-19 cases was to ensure more students clear the degree and join the work force across the state. However, with no degree in hand, we are stuck at home unable to be of any help at present,” said another student, with one ATKT.

Since May this year, these 240 students have approached the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) as well as the Directorate of Medical Education & Research (DMER) for clarity in this matter, but no official word has come out yet.

“As per rules, we can conduct supplementary exams for this with ATKTs only after a 90-day period. So as per that, exams for summer session should be conducted in July and students will be informed about this soon,” said Dr TP Lahane, director, DMER.